Five Points Gallery, presents three new solo exhibitions featuring the work of Power Boothe, Jason Montgomery, and Joseph V. Clarke.

Power Boothe’s recent paintings in the West Gallery celebrate his ever-evolving visual language. Montgomery’s mixed-media installation in the TDP Gallery pays homage to deceased Native American children housed in former residential school sites in the US and Canada. Clarke’s work on exhibit in the East Gallery blends painting and sculpture through a unique process-based methodology.

Power Boothe’s paintings in the West Gallery represent more than six decades of highly, personal, constantly evolving interpretations of the formal elements. Boothe’s intellectual approach to painting is surpassed only by his acute sensitivity to the nuances of color, form, line, and surface, and an intense understanding of viewers’ ability to look, feel, and engage. In Boothe’s words, “Looking takes time; painting is an adventure. The imaginative space of painting is where something unexpected can happen. Painting ‘comes to life’ in the realm of what is unsayable.”

Mixed Media Installation

Jason Montgomery’s site-specific installation in the TDP gallery draws attention to the systematic brutality of the Native American residential school program in the USA and Canada. The program founded in 1879, was designed to assimilate Indigenous youth into mainstream American culture through education. The discovery of nearly 8,000 bodies of children at former residential school sites in Canada has sadly provided evidence of the ruthlessness of the program. Jason Montgomery’s installation composed of 2000 red flags is a memorial remembering, honoring, and acknowledging those many thousands of children who never returned home from this mandated initiative.

Joseph Clarke’s process-based, high-gloss paintings, speak directly to the integration of diverse disciplines emblematic of many 21st-century artists’ approaches to artmaking. Although Clarke’s work begins on traditional stretched, primed, painted canvas, his process turns exploratory with the addition of clear epoxy resin. This substance in its malleable state allows him to fold and bend the canvas with an emotive energy that transforms the flat surfaces into solid sculptural forms. Clarke states: “Forms emerge so rapidly and aggressively it is truly a spectacle to behold and one that I do not foresee myself getting tired of witnessing.”

Gallery hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 1 - 5 p.m., and by appointment 860-618-7222.

There will be an in-person Artist Talk, on Friday, Sept. 29, at 6:30 p.m.

Five Points exhibitions and educational events are free and open to the public. There is no admission charge to the Gallery. All artwork is for sale.

These exhibitions are kindly sponsored by Torrington Savings Bank.

Five Points is supported in part by the Connecticut Office of the Arts, Department of Economic and Community Development.

About Five Points Gallery: Located in the historic district of downtown Torrington, Five Points Gallery is the flagship location of Five Points Arts. For more information about Five Points Arts, visit www.fivepointsarts.org